Saturday Bird Droppings: Where it’s Chris Davis days to Opening Day

Hello, friends.

There are now 19 days to go until Orioles Opening Day. That is Chris Davis days to go until there are real baseball games being played, or if you prefer, Dave McNally days. It will be here before we know it.

The spring training schedule rolls on today with the Orioles playing the Pirates this afternoon. It’s a home game, and the Orioles flagship station in Baltimore is actually bothering to broadcast it if you want to listen at 1:05. It will also be on Pirates radio.

Though we’re down to Davis days to go until Opening Day, he will not be playing today, nor tomorrow either. The original estimation that he would be out 3-5 days with a sore forearm could hit 10 before he plays again, as Buck Showalter said Davis wouldn’t be back to “baseball action” until early next week.

As of this writing, there are 49 players still kicking around the Orioles major league camp. Tim Melville and Asher Wojciechowski were reassigned on Friday. Most fans have probably not heard of those gentlemen, so you can probably imagine that doesn’t do a whole lot to solve any of the remaining questions about the composition of the Opening Day roster.

Around the blogO’sphere

Ynoa out at least two weeks, and other notes (School of Roch)
This probably scratches Gabriel Ynoa off of the fifth starter competition for the Opening Day roster. He might have been off the list even before this.

Miguel Castro confident in being a starter (Orioles.com)
...but Miguel Castro is still hanging around in the picture.

Chris Tillman to make exhibition debut Tuesday and the timing is telling (Baltimore Sun)
What’s telling about the timing, according to Peter Schmuck, is that this apparently lines up Chris Tillman to start the first road game of the year. I’m just glad there doesn’t appear to be a temptation to start him on Opening Day.

The Orioles were MLB’s slowest team in 2017 (Eutaw Street Report)
You probably already knew the Orioles were slow, but maybe not how slow.

Jon Jay is not your Huckleberry (Camden Depot)
Jon Shepherd thinks that Jon Jay is a weird hill to die on.

Projecting Delmarva’s rotation: Young, talented, crowded (Steve Melewski)
There are seven candidates for Delmarva’s starting rotation, including four of last year’s draft picks. They’re going to have to figure out how to pare that down.

Birthdays and anniversaries

There are two former Orioles with birthdays today. They are: 2007 outfielder Tike Redman, and 1999-2000 reliever Mike Timlin.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: actor/meme Chuck Norris (1940), basketball coach Jim Valvano (1946), Def Jam Records co-founder Rick Rubin (1963), actor Jon Hamm (1971), singer-songwriter Carrie Underwood (1983), and actress Olivia Wilde (1984).

On this day in history...

In 947, the Later Han dynasty was founded by newly-declared emperor Liu Zhiyuan. Although this sounds important, Later Han was only one of five dynasties during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era of Chinese history - and as it turned out, the shortest-lived, being overthrown within four years.

In 1629, King Charles I of England dissolved the Parliament, beginning an eleven-year period of absolute rule. Eventually, the successor to that Parliament cut off his head.

In 1804, in St. Louis, the formal ceremony took place by which France transferred ownership of the Louisiana Territory to the United States.

In 1848, with the ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo by the Senate, the Mexican-American War came to an end. The treaty set the US-Mexico border in Texas at the Rio Grande, and granted America the territory of California, along with much of present-day Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada, among other places.

In 1970, Captain Ernest Medina was charged by the US military with war crimes for his role in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. Medina was the company commander of the soldiers who committed the massacre and killed an unarmed young woman. He was, however, acquitted of all charges against him, having claimed that he issued no orders leading to the massacre and that he thought the woman had a grenade.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on March 10 - or at least, until something happens later, even if what happens doesn’t count. Have a safe Saturday.